The Grain the Size of a Hen's Egg

Once some children found in a ravine a thing the size of a hen’s egg, with a groove down the middle and shaped like a grain. A passerby saw the thing with the children, bought it for five kopecks, took it to the city, and sold it to the king as a curiosity.

The king summoned his wise men and commanded them to discover what sort of thing this was—an egg or a grain. The wise men thought and thought but could not give an answer. The thing lay on a windowsill; a hen flew in and began pecking at it and pecked a hole; then everyone saw that it was a grain. The wise men came and told the king: “It is a grain of rye.”

The king was amazed. He commanded the wise men to discover where and when this grain had grown. The wise men thought and thought, searched in books—and found nothing. They came to the king and said: “We cannot give an answer. In our books nothing is written about this; we must ask the peasants whether any of them has heard from the old folk when and where such grain was sown.”

The king sent out and commanded that an old peasant be brought to him. They found a very old peasant and brought him to the king. The old man came in, green and toothless; he could barely walk on two crutches.

The king showed him the grain, but the old man could no longer see; he managed somehow to make out half of it and felt the other half with his hands.

The king began to question him: “Do you know, grandfather, where such grain grew? Did you yourself not sow such grain in your field? Or in your lifetime did you not buy such grain somewhere?”

The old man was deaf; he barely, barely made out the words, barely, barely understood. He began to answer: “No,” he said, “in my field I never sowed such grain, never reaped it, and never bought it. When we bought grain, the kernels were always small, as they are now. But you should ask my father; perhaps he heard where such grain grew.”

The king sent for the old man’s father and commanded that he be brought. They found the old man’s father too and brought him to the king. The old man came in on one crutch. The king began to show him the grain. The old man could still see with his eyes and examined it well. The king began to question him: “Do you know, old fellow, where such grain grew? Did you yourself not sow such grain in your field? Or in your lifetime did you not buy such grain somewhere?”

Though the old man was rather hard of hearing, he heard better than his son. “No,” he said, “in my own field I never sowed such grain and never reaped it. And I never bought it, because in my time money wasn’t yet in use. Everyone fed themselves with their own grain, and in need we shared with one another. I don’t know where such grain grew. Although our grain was larger and yielded more than today’s, I never saw any like this. But I heard from my father that in his time grain grew better than in ours, yielded more and was larger. You must ask him.”

The king sent for the old man’s father. They found the grandfather too and brought him to the king. The old man came in to the king without crutches; he walked in easily—his eyes were bright, he heard well, and he spoke clearly. The king showed the grain to the grandfather. The grandfather looked at it, turned it over. “It’s been a long time,” he said, “since I’ve seen such old-fashioned grain.” The grandfather bit off a piece of the grain and chewed a crumb.

“It’s the same,” he said.

“Tell me, grandfather, where did such grain grow? Did you yourself not sow such grain in your field? Or in your lifetime did you not buy it somewhere from others?”

And the old man said: “Grain like this grew everywhere in my time. I fed myself and others on this grain all my life.”

And the king asked: “Then tell me, grandfather, did you buy such grain somewhere, or did you yourself sow it in your field?”

The old man smiled.

“In my time,” he said, “no one could even think of such a sin as buying or selling grain. And we knew nothing of money; everyone had grain of their own in plenty. I myself sowed such grain and reaped it and threshed it.”

And the king asked: “Then tell me, grandfather, where did you sow such grain, and where was your field?”

And the old man said: “My field was God’s earth. Wherever I plowed, there was my field. The land was free. People didn’t know ‘my own land.’ We called only our labor our own.”

“Tell me two more things,” said the king. “The first thing: why did such grain grow before but doesn’t grow now? And the second thing: why did your grandson come on two crutches, your son came on one crutch, but you came quite easily, your eyes are bright, your teeth are strong, and your speech is clear and kindly? Tell me, grandfather, why did these two things come to be?”

And the old man said: “Both things came to be because people stopped living by their own labor and began to covet what belongs to others. In the old days we didn’t live that way; in the old days we lived according to God’s way: we had what was ours, and we didn’t profit from what belonged to others.”

—Leo Tolstoy

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Translator’s Notes:

• This parable was written in 1886 during the period when Tolstoy was producing a series of popular tales for the common people. It reflects his mature philosophy about private property, money, and communal ownership.
• The progression from great-grandson (on two crutches) to grandson (one crutch) to grandfather (walking easily) mirrors the moral and physical decline from the communal past to the commercial present.
• “God’s earth” (земля божья) and “free land” (земля вольная) express Tolstoy’s conviction that land, like air and sunlight, cannot be owned—a central tenet of his later social philosophy influenced by Henry George.
• The phrase “we called only our labor our own” (своим только труды свои называли) encapsulates Tolstoy’s belief that only the fruits of one’s own labor are legitimately one’s property.
• The “sin” (грех) of buying and selling grain represents the corruption of turning God’s gifts into commodities.
• This tale became popular among Tolstoyan communities and Russian peasant movements that advocated for land reform and communal agriculture.